Taking Responsibility
by Mello-Drama-Reborn
Summary: In which Nagisa gets to work teaching Rei how to swim and it is an incredibly long and painstaking process.
1. Kicking

Hello! I would like to make a note that I am aware that this whole fic may become irrelevant with the release of episode 4, but am writing this anyway because I have a feeling that the anime won't portray Rei's journey to swimminghood with as much care as I plan to (and for good reason, if it takes Rei 1,000 words to kick in a pool). I hope you can enjoy my journey though remembered swimming drills as applied by cute boys.

* * *

The air was humid and heavy with the smell of chlorine as Rei entered the pool area of Samezuka Academy. It was only a week ago that he had humiliated himself in this very building, and he felt like all eyes were on him even as Nagisa assured him otherwise. The tiled floor had water running in the cracks, and as Nagisa pushed him towards the end lane of the pool he felt like he'd definitely slip if he wasn't careful.  
"... The floor is damp."  
"Yes, yes and water is wet, now get in!" Nagisa had a smile on his face as he shoved Rei closer to pool, Rei's panic rising just as fast even if he tried not to show it, tried to keep his voice down.  
"You realize that last time I was here I nearly _drowned?_"  
"You won't drown. Now get in!" Nagisa peered around Rei's shoulders to get a good look at his face, one that currently was grimacing at the idea of another near-death experience. "Come on, you're not scared, are you? You were so brave last time!"  
"W-Well a lot of people were watching then!" The memory only served to make Rei more and more nervous as the water loomed ever closer. Just as he was about to look over his shoulder and tell Nagisa he had changed his mind about the whole thing, he felt the pressure on his back release and Nagisa moved in front of him, grasping Rei's hands in his.  
"I won't let you drown. I promise."

Something about this guy always managed to sway him.

Soon Rei was in the water, clinging desperately to the wall as Nagisa floated easily at his side.  
"Okay, you stretch yourself out," Nagisa was watching him closely, already in the frame of mind of a coach, "no- extend your arms." He had moved behind Rei, outside his field of vision. "Now I'm going to grab your ankles and kick for you."  
"What- I think I can do that much!"  
"I want you to know what it feels like! You've never done this before, right?"  
The heat in Rei's cheeks was all the more apparent to him with the contrast of the cold water as Nagisa awkwardly moved his legs up and down in the water. Nagisa must have noticed how tense he was, because he called over "Don't worry, no one's watching. They're all on the other side of the pool doing more time trials." Even though he couldn't see him, he could hear the smile in his voice as he added "They probably can't take their eyes off of Mako-chan and Haru-chan, they're such good swimmers!"  
Rei was once again reminded of how good of swimmers all of them were, and how he was pathetic in comparison. Since he had joined the swim team, he had often heard mentions of how the others had won some big swim tournament in elementary school. The thought of someone of that skill teaching him the basics made Rei want to drown himself right then and there.

"Okay, you've leveled up!" Nagisa sounded proud, even though they had hardly been on the pool longer than five minutes. "You get to kick on your own now! Go!" Just like that, Nagisa let go of Rei's legs, and the sudden lack of support and feeling of his feet sinking caused him to panic and he started sloppily kicking, splashing Nagisa a good deal in the process. Nagisa quickly ducked under the water and swam to his side, out of range of his splashing. "What happened to your theory and calculation, Rei-chan? You look ugly! U-G-L-Y!"  
Rei glared at him, trying to slow his kicking, but feeling unsteady as he tried.  
"Control! Control!"  
Rei had no idea that learning to kick in the water would be so hard. Glancing at the others having their practice, their kicks looked controlled. There was no panic there, and Rei yearned for the freedom they must feel.  
_When will I be able to swim like that? Free?_  
He redoubled his efforts, forcing himself to calm down, getting back into his rational mind, imagining the smooth, confident swimming of the others.  
"Ahh~ it looks a lot better, Rei-chan! You're learning really quickly!" Rei felt gratified by his praise for a brief second, until he saw Nagisa's face had twisted into something sinister. "Now put your face in water."  
"What?"  
"You heard me." Nagisa shook his head a bit at Rei's disbelief. "How do you expect to swim if you don't put your face down? Your lower body will sag and you'll lose speed." The argument was a logical one- it made sense to Rei. But fear and previous notions were more powerful than logic.  
"Why would I put myself in something that could easily suffocate me? It's counter-productive! It's suicide!"  
As Nagisa drew closer, Rei had a feeling he knew what he was going to do before he did it.  
"Head... IN!" With that, he shoved Rei's face in the water, and when common sense said to get it out, Nagisa held him down. When he couldn't take it any longer, he risked letting go of the wall to quickly kick away from him.  
"What were you doing!? Were you trying to suffocate me?"  
"Huh? You were supposed to breathe to the side. You could still move your neck, right?"  
"I didn't know that!"  
"Huh? Oh... I guess you wouldn't."  
"No! I wouldn't!"

After that, Rei got to take a small break against the wall while Nagisa demonstrated how to breath to the side, showing it with the freestyle strokes as well, even if Rei wasn't anywhere close to adding the arms. Then Rei had to try it out himself, fighting his instinct to bring his face up and dragging down his lower body in the process.

"Okay, you're ready!" Nagisa looked confident, but Rei had started to become wary of his enthusiasm.  
"Ready for what?"  
"To get off the wall!"  
Rei looked longingly at the wall. He had been annoyed by its slightly scratchy surface and lack of purchase, but now he was leaving it he would take it all back to avoid being in open water. Nagisa caught his look and smiled reassuringly.  
"Don't worry- you'll still have something to hold onto!" He lifting Rei's hands from the wall before pushing off, dragging Rei a little ways away from the wall. "Me!"  
"Wha-?"  
Nagisa held each of Rei's hands with his own, smiling at him as he effortlessly kept himself afloat.

Haruka and Makoto walked around the edge of the pool, coming to a stop as they approached the leftmost lane.  
"Hey, Nagisa! What are you two doing?"  
"Ah, Mako-chan!" Nagisa looked up from Rei, who was kicking determinedly from his position in front of Nagisa. "Haru-chan too! Is practice done already?" He saw Haruka nod, and squeezed Rei's hands a bit to get his attention. Immediately his kicking stopped and he looked up to see the others.  
"Oh, but you didn't get to swim, Nagisa..." Makoto looked at Nagisa with a sad smile, with perhaps a little pitty for being stuck with the new swimmer.  
"I don't mind! I like teaching Rei-chan! He's gotten pretty good at kicking!"  
Haruka looked at Rei with a condescending look, no doubt disappointed he wasn't already doing laps.  
"Yeah- but what about when he has to learn the other types of kicking?" Nagisa laughed along with Makoto at his comment, even as the atmosphere was quickly becoming dreary.  
"Ehh, maybe he'll just stick to freestyle?"  
Haruka shot Nagisa a look, and he knew instantly that wasn't going to happen.


	2. Finishing Strokes

Rei sat on a steel bench, watching as Nagisa and several of the Samezuka Academy swimmers connected the lane lines. Nagisa was of course dragging one long chain of plastic rings to the left-most hook, preparing the lane that Rei would be using as they continued his lessons. Holding the lane line with one arm, he was doing regular freestyle strokes with the other, endlessly rotating as he slowly kicked his way down the pool. He crouched at the end, seeming so far away as he hooked the long divider into the wall. Rei thought Nagisa may have pointed a thumbs up in his direction when he finished before pushing off the wall, resurfacing half way down the pool in an odd stroke he couldn't identify. He would have looked almost comical if he wasn't so good at it, his head bobbing regularly out of the water to take a breath.  
When he reached the other side, he signaled to Rei to wait as he crossed to the other side of the pool, calling over the Samezuka swim captian. "Mikoshiba-san! Where do you keep the kickboards?"

Pretty soon Nagisa was coming back with two small pieces of thick foam, which Rei deduced to be kickboards.  
"Sorry for the wait!" He handed Rei a kickboard.  
"What was that stroke you were doing earlier?"  
"Oh, that? It was breaststroke! But you won't be doing anything like that today- now get in to pool, we're going to do laps!"  
Rei looked at him in shock.  
"What-? But I can barely swim-"  
"Relax! We'll be using the kickboards, so you'll have something to hold onto, and I'll be doing it with you! Now let's warm up, come on!"

Even though he was still only kicking, at least moving through the water made Rei feel a little more like a swimmer. Looking at the other lanes, he could see the other swimmers doing similar warm ups, albeit much faster.  
"Face down!"  
Rei sighed, doing as his coach commanded.

Nagisa stopped him when he reached the end of the pool. The others were doing multiple laps of the pool without stopping, but of course he couldn't hope to measure up to them just yet.  
"Okay, now we're going to get those arms moving!"  
Rei looked at the kickboard in his hands quizzically.  
"Then, what do I do with this?"  
"You're going to use it, silly!" Nagisa held up his own kickboard. "We're going to do the catch-up drill!" Nagisa placed the kickboard back in the water his hands resting in its edge. "Here, I'll show you. It's better than explaining." Nagisa pushed off the wall and started kicking as the had before, and Rei started to follow him on the other side of the lane. Then Nagisa let go of the board with one of his hands and swung it back in the water, going full cycle until it landed back on the kickboard. The moment his hand landed, he let go with his other and repeated the process. Once they had crossed the half-way point of the pool, Nagisa stopped both his hands on the board and looked up from the water, still kicking strong. "Get it? Now you try!" Without missing a beat, Rei plunged his face into the water, trying out the stroke for the first time.

Rei hardly noticed he had reached the end of the pool until his kickboard hit the wall. It was oddly satisfying, his first semblance of real swimming. Nagisa pulled in beside him, looking satisfied as well.  
"So, wanna try it without the kickboard?"  
"Yes!" Rei's enthusiastic smile only made Nagisa's smile grow.

As Rei made his way down the pool once more, kickboard laying on top of the wall behind him, he no longer felt nervous about being unsupported in open water. After feeling babied during his previous lesson, he had yearned to prove himself capable on his own. The water was no longer a danger, but a bench mark. An opportunity.  
_This time, time won't look down on my progress when practice is over!_

Some time later, Haruka and Makoto once again made their way down the pool to the left-most lane to check on Nagisa and Rei. This time, they seemed to be waiting for them.  
"Hey, how are you guys? Practice go well?" Makoto called down to them, Nagisa and Rei smiling at each other.  
"Went great! In fact, I think Rei-chan wants to show off to you two!"  
Embarrassed, Rei scowled a bit at Nagisa's choice of words.  
"Is that right? Show us what you got, then!"  
Nagisa stepped out of the pool and nodded to Rei. He still couldn't do a track start (and had been reluctant to attempt one in case someone looked over again), but Nagisa had taught him to push off the wall and streamline, even if he was using the wrong type of kick at the moment.  
Rei pushed off the wall, kicking under the water as he held his arms tightly in front of him, his head clasped between them. Breaking the surface, he tried to go faster than he had during the practice, aware of the eyes on him. He also remembered what he had learned through his past two practices, keeping a controlled, beautiful stroke.  
_To maximize my speed, I can't breathe too often, but not so infrequently that I get slowed down with larger breaths. To stop myself from favoring a side and getting off-balanced, I should regularly breath every five strokes._

Haruka and Makoto looked on, obviously a bit impressed. He was unpracticed, but his body was long and strong enough to make him decently fast. When he got to the other wall, they winced as he came to a complete stop and launched like he had before. When they both turned to look at Nagisa, he could only shrug his shoulders.  
"We didn't quite get to flip turns..."

Nonetheless, when Rei reached them once again, the others' faces were more possitive than they had been the previous practice. Makoto looked genuinely pleased, and if Haruka wasn't that then he at least wasn't scowling.  
Nagisa, meanwhile, was so proud that he jumped back into the pool to give him a hug, with Makoto warning him to be careful as they both fell back into the water.

* * *

With that, I think I'm done with with this specific story (unless anyone would want me to write about teaching him flipturns and the track start)!  
I hope you enjoyed reading, as I really enjoyed writing it! Thanks for reading!


End file.
